Scott Pelley forced out at CBS News after raucous meeting
The latest 60 Minutes correspondent to depart
[This post was updated at 11:43 a.m.]
If you are seeing CBS News collapse right before your eyes, you’re not mistaken. The ship is sinking faster than the Titanic.
Longtime 60 Minutes correspondent and one-time CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley was fired Tuesday evening by the show’s new executive producer Nick Bilton, for “insubordination” and confronting him in a meeting Monday on the general direction of the show and 60 Minutes.
During that stormy meeting Monday, Kelley confronted Bolton on the changes he planned to make on the long-running newsmagazine show, which has been on the air since 1968, and on Sunday nights since 1975.
In a memo to Pelley, Bilton in part wrote: “Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you. I therefore write on behalf of CBS News, Inc. to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately.”
In the termination letter obtained by NBC News, Bilton wrote: “[Monday’s] performative display of hostility — enacted in front of the staff instead of in a civil, private conversation — demonstrated that you have no interest in contributing to the future success of the show, or approaching my new tenure with a mind open to collaboration and progress.”
This came after Pelley questioned the direction CBS News and 60 Minutes was heading under new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, and in a recording obtained by NBC News, Kelley was quoted as saying to Bilton, “[Weiss] does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that.” Pelley also questioned the show’s decision to fire executive producer Tanya Simon and correspondents Ceilicia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi – the latter who confronted Weiss last year after delaying a report on Venezuelan men being deported to a El Salvador prison – a segment that wound up airing online in Canada before it did in the U.S.
After his termination, Kelley released a statement, stating he was told to insert falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story and to report assertions that were not verified. “Incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all,” Pelley said in the letter.
Scott Pelley has provided @status.news a statement blasting current CBS News management and even accusing them of having tried (and failed) to "inject falsehoods and bias" into his stories. www.status.news/p/scott-pell…
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy.bsky.social) 2026-06-03T03:27:48.983Z
This comes after Weiss was installed as editor-in-chief last year, after Skydance bought CBS parent Paramount Global. Skydance CEO David Ellison – the son of Oracle founder and President Larry Ellison, hired Weiss to remake the news organization into a more conservative-leaning news operation to please President Donald Trump, who was critical of both CBS News and 60 Minutes. The changes have been disastrous so far, as the CBS Evening News has fallen far behind its network rivals, although 60 Minutes remains the top-rated news magazine. Paramount is in the process of buying Warner Bros. Discovery, which faces anti-trust hurdles and would give Weiss control of CNN.
Weiss defended Pelley’s firing on Wednesday.
“Despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways,” Weiss said on a mid-morning editorial call, according to the New York Times. “We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose.”
Like Weiss, Bilton has no experience in television news, with his resume consisting of being a tech reporter at the New York Times, and an investigative reporter for Vanity Fair.
With Pelley’s departure, 60 Minutes is left with three correspondents: veterans Lesley Stahl and Bill Whittaker, and Jon Wertheim, who plan to stay (another correspondent, Anderson Cooper, left last month voicing similar concerns over CBS News’ direction.)
The constant changes and public infighting has hurt CBS News’ image and the network in general, as CBS is still taking arrows for canceling Stephen Colbert’s late-night show and replacing it with the syndicated Comics Unleashed, which is not off to a great ratings start. According to Status (a media newsletter), Paramount executives are privately concerned about the damage to the CBS brand name (the brand name here in Chicago was damaged beyond repair after decades of missteps after missteps, and the boycott of WBBM-TV by Rev. Jesse Jackson after anchor Harry Porterfield was demoted, sending Black viewers toward the exits, never to return.)
Weiss was quoted as not caring about ratings, figuring it would take time to rebuild CBS News, but at what cost? We all know the answer to that – their journalistic integrity, as Weiss and the new crowd there don’t seem to care. And it’s one investors – and advertisers, need to take a closer look at.